West Indies captain Brian Lara yesterday apologised to Caribbean fans for his side's string of poor performances which have all but eliminated them from contention in the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Needing a win against South Africa to enhance their chances of a semi-final berth, West Indies slipped to a 67-run defeat - their fourth successive in the Super Eight, second round. "Whatever the situation, when we go on to the cricket field, we try our best. I know that the support [from fans] has been there. The stadiums have not been full but I think I know that the support is great," Lara told reporters. "We are very disappointed and we are sad that we have disappointed the people of the Caribbean and the people who support us around the world. We feel it a lot and we know that the man in the street is definitely disappointed. "When we go to practice, the waving of the people on the side of the roads, we understand what cricket means to them and we would not go out there not wanting to perform. It just happens that we played bad cricket and we are going to hold our hands up and say 'yes, we played bad cricket and we don't deserve to be in the semi-finals'." An emotional Lara continued: "And to our people, sorry about that and let's hope that we can pick ourselves up. There are many more World Cups to come, there are some young players in the team and we just hope that they can regroup quickly and get out of it because it's really a state of shock to be here and [be] unable to fulfil not just our dreams but the dreams of the people in the Caribbean." West Indies sailed through the preliminary round of the World Cup by winning all three of their matches but are yet to win in the second round, having been beaten convincingly by Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa. With only two points and with matches remaining against Bangladesh and England, the hosts' chances of reaching the semi-finals have all but disappeared. Reprinted from jamaicaobserver.com